The Dreaming | Fri 11th to Mon 14th Jun 2010 — Ned Martin’s Dot Org

Friday 11th June – The Dreaming

After a late night last night, I got up at 6 AM, turned on my heater (it was about 10 degrees I reckon, if not less), and packed as fast as I could.

Sarah turned up just as I was finishing, and we drove up to her place, packed in the rest of the stuff, got Bronwen, and drove to The Dreaming Festival, missing the turn-off but eventually arriving. It was still extremely cold.

We set up camp in a fairly good spot, as flat as can be expected on the side of a mountain up in Cloudland, then had a snooze, before a nice lunch and a wander down to the festival site, where I popped into the shop to say hi. The weather is just perfect, though I can tell it’s going to get very cold, very fast, quite soon.

6pm

We attended our Festival Shop induction.

8:30pm

After watching the packed opening ceremony, I headed back to the Festival Shop to help out. I wasn’t rostered on tonight but Jade had some things come up meaning she couldn’t stay at the shop, and it’s actually a lot of fun, so I hung around and helped out until we shut around 11:30.

Midnight

I tracked down Bronwen and slowly froze while watching her dance.

Saturday 12th June

Bronwen and her Mum had an early shift at the shop so had to get up. It was still freezing so I stayed in bed until it warmed up, queued for a shower - as usual, despite the women having more showers than the men, there were women in the men’s shower queue - and headed back down to the festival for breakfast.

Afternoon

After watching a few things with Bronwen, I headed back up to the tent to get warm things for the night and get ready for my shift.

2pm

I worked until 7. I’m impressed with people who do things without money - one of the people I was supervising turned up at the festival gate with no money and no ticket and managed to get a position at the shop, and the supervisor before me turned up hoping to have a paid position with one of the stalls but didn’t and had to go from stall to stall looking and ended up with a job.

Night

I met up with Bronwen and we went and watched things—or more accurately, Bronwen went and danced and I watched her dance.

Sunday 13th June

Morning

I got up at a relatively normal hour and queued for a shower. The cubicle next to me fairly obviously had a man and a woman in it, and they had something of a sense of humour.

Bronwen, Sarah and I wandered around the festival watching things. Magpie Blues was good.

Afternoon

I had a little snooze while Bronwen and Sarah had lunch, then went and got myself lunch while they went to work.

Night

I worked from 7 to midnight, closing the shop and reconciling, as Jade was sick and had gone to bed, and Amy was extremely exhausted after too much work.

Late Night

After work Bronwen and I spent a couple of hours watching various acts.

Monday 14th June

Morning

We were all up early to open the shop. Jade managed to have a sleep-in so I opened the shop, and worked through to 2 o’clock.

Afternoon

We packed up the tents and spent the afternoon wandering around the festival.

Night

I began to feel sick not long after dinner, and was very tired while watching the closing ceremony. After the closing ceremony, we walked back to the car and drove home. I had to concentrate on not being sick the whole way. I thought it was exhaustion, but a couple of hours after going to bed, I woke up suddenly very ill, and managed to spew all over the hallway on my way to the bathroom. This was particularly un-ideal, as not only was it very cold, but every time I started to try to clean it up, I’d feel sick again, and have to sit down, so it took a few hours to sort out, and I didn’t get a lot of sleep.